Finding Home Sweet Home

This past weekend, I hosted an open mic/art show at the homestead.
It was an evening the had me enthralled and I didn't want it to end. A
poet, a sculptor, a singer and a spoken word performer, amongst a few
more writers and creative geniuses, graced us with their offerings. It
was such a sacred time that ushered summer in with profound, but gentle
truth. I am almost at the end of making a big transition that I announced last week. Thank you to everyone for your support and encouragement in this season. It has meant so much to me and my husband.

In
reflecting about the first days of summer that are upon us all, I
couldn't help but think about this past season and the direction of my
life. I wrote this for the Open Mic with the prompt I gave the other
participants: We will meet the weekend before Summer Solstice to
celebrate the changing of seasons. Using that prompt, please create
something, or pick something you already have with a similar theme to
share.

I want to share it with those of you who couldn't be
there before I head out of town for my annual no-technology week next
week. I will post some pics of the yard later this week, but here is
the piece - Finding Home Sweet Home

After I was born,
my parents brought me home. Home was a typical middle class suburban
house in a Western Washington neighborhood.

The home sat
nestled in a few pine trees with other houses not too close, but not too
far away either. I grew up playing in the street with other kids, and
painting on an easel my mom set up for me in her art studio.

Although
I was young, I remember feeling safe at the fact that my room was
sandwiched between my two older brothers' and my parents' rooms.

Home
changed though as my father's appetite for a house with a view grew. He
moved us to his custom dream home on a cliff with a driveway a tenth of
a mile long. Our neighbors were senior citizens destined to live out
their lives in peace and tranquility.

Our
home became anything but that and the word home began to scare me. I
didn't face that fear though. Rather, as a tween, I tried to rise above
it - become more - but more of what?

Seasons
marched on. After the divorce, we moved miles away from anything
familiar with my mom, to another house on a cliff. Our family teetered
close to the proverbial edge as we tried to regain footing.

We
were not supposed to get comfortable in the mustard colored kitchen and
rooms with burnt orange carpet. The wood paneling belonged in someone
else's home - from ages ago - not mine.

I didn't long for new,
shiny, or big - I wanted to feel safe; to ease my worry; to be able to
meet other people and play. Eventually we moved again, right next door
to wait for the season when the mustard and orange would fade away, but
they stayed as long as I did and the promised home was built long after I
moved out.

For some students in college, going home meant
familiarity, comfort and warmth. For me those first years back were a
jumble of broken dreams, dysfunction and some money and humor to hide
the pain.

I began to realize that maybe I never understood what
home was. False senses of security and conditional love on a foundation
of perfection and approval introduced seasons of burnout and sickness.

Home was nowhere to be found. And definitely not sweet.

The deconstruction took many moons, many cycles, and the tides never seemed to stop ebbing and flowing.

I
was whittled down to a cornerstone - a landing place where I finally
started reconstruction - in a valley far from any cliffs. There were
seasons of abundance and drought. But the house being built was
different - with awareness and intentionality - knowing privilege and
gaining appreciation of diversity of land, food, and people.

Home is
something I'm increasingly finding has to do more with my soul than the
places it inhabits. But when that soul manifests itself, when I tune
into the Center - my truth - the place takes on a different meaning too.

This
past winter was a deep hibernation. One that was haunted with wishes
of others and good intentions gone awry. I knew spring would come, I
just didn't know what would bloom. This time of processing was different
though. The roots were there waiting with patience. The hours, days and
years of trying to figure out home had finally found one in me. It
called out and I answered knowing the risk of going deeper into this
home - adding on and tending the soil instead of using an easy weed
killer.

Coming home is what I am beckoned to do. To do it in a
radical way. To go back to my grandmother's roots, but also continue to
nourish my own. To show-up for my life - to be present for my husband,
my neighbors, and my work. The call is not to bake and be barefoot, but
dig new life into a beat-up house and a weary soul. To find sparks of
meaning with each transition, each season; with each student, directee,
and friend I come in contact with. To rediscover the simple truth that
exists just below the surface of the earth and our skin -- that we are
all beloved. That is what coming home truly is, and I'm glad I've found
my home sweet home in this season.

A recovering perfectionist that asks questions about life, art, the Spirit and this imperfect culture we live in, I help women tap into their true self in Jesus through creative means and spiritual direction.